by P. M. Biswas
“Secrets don’t have to be grand to be precious,” Soma countered. “And a pond need not be shallow. Do you remember the Pool of Healing? It looks shallow and small from the outside, but in truth it is infinite. You floated in its immeasurable depths as you healed.” At that, Soma stretched a wrinkled hand out toward Loren. “You should join us too, Loren. After all, you are Tam’s bonded.”
Loren spluttered. “I’m—I’m not her—”
“Perhaps not by will, but by circumstance, you are. As your very life force is bound to hers, I cannot read her in isolation, not without reading you as well. It will be far easier to plumb her psyche with your assistance. Else, as she is human and unused to such an invasion, I might injure her.”
“I-injure me?” Tam squeaked.
As soon as the potential for Tam being injured was brought up, Loren sprang protectively to his feet and then looked dumbfounded that he had done so, as if he had moved without his volition. He hovered there, uncertain, seeming torn between his dignity and what the bond demanded of him. Tam was lucky that as the nonmagical human half of their… equation, she couldn’t feel its irresistible pull. In fact, she felt just like she always did.
Loren evidently didn’t.
“Go,” said Eras to his son, his tone brooking no argument.
Loren went. Or, to be more accurate, he trudged toward Tam like a man trudging toward his own execution. He sat on the other side of Soma, facing Tam, who stuck her tongue out at him.
“You’re such an infant,” Loren said scornfully. “Do you not realize that our Seer has just said you may be psychically injured without my presence? And your reaction to that is to stick your tongue out at me?”
“Better than sticking my tongue down your throat, husband,” Tam sneered.
“And I would cut mine out before I called you wife!”
“Children,” said Soma forbearingly, even as Eras muffled one of his coughs in his palm. Soma took Loren’s right hand and Tam’s left hand, bringing them together on her lap.
“Are we supposed to hold hands?” Loren asked dubiously.
“No,” Tam said snidely, “our hands are simply meant to occupy the same space at the same time. Yes, she wants us to hold hands, Loren! Gods.”
“To think I once twined my blood with yours, out of a misbegotten sense of compassion and out of my duty as an elf. I even thought you were amusing after you awakened, before you revealed what an ungrateful wretch you are.”
Tam’s mood soured. The guilt she’d felt at not behaving honorably toward Loren—at not having repaid her debt to him or even having expressed her desire to repay it—crept up her gullet like bile.
“She is not ungrateful,” said Soma, and Loren gaped at her, startled.
“No, I am.” Tam had the horrid feeling that her cheeks were warming; thankfully, dark as her skin was, that warmth didn’t show up much. “Ungrateful, that is. I have—I don’t—just because he saved my life doesn’t mean he owns it.”
“That much is true,” Soma agreed. “Our laws state that all life that can be saved must be saved. Prince Loren only did his duty.”
“Exactly.” Emboldened, Tam met Loren’s eyes squarely. “If I were to save someone, I wouldn’t expect them to treat me any differently. I wouldn’t save them because I wanted them to grovel at my feet or spout unending praises at me. It’d give me the hives.”
Loren’s cheeks, unlike Tam’s, were tellingly blotchy. “I didn’t…. That’s not why I saved your life, either! You were bleeding all over that poor horse when I first saw you—”
“Oh, so you saved me because my horse needed a wardrobe change?”
“No. I saved you because you looked terrible—”
“So I was too ugly for you to tolerate, and you just had to save me to make me less ugly?”
“No! You looked like you were dying! That’s why I saved you! Even if the preservation of life wasn’t in our laws, I wouldn’t have left such a fragile creature to perish on its own!”
“Oi,” said Tam, sorely offended. Could Loren not see that her biceps were twice—nay, thrice—the width of his? She’d worked ruddy hard for those! Loren was a runt in comparison. An annoyingly tall runt, but still. “Call me fragile again and I’ll show you how fragile I am, princeling.”
“What else are you if not fragile? We elves cannot die unless we will it, unlike you lot, who can die at the drop of a hat. You may have exercised every muscle you have, but that doesn’t make you impervious to death.”
“You two,” Eras exhaled at last. “Perhaps if you would quiet down, Seer Soma could progress with her examination?”
“No.” Soma beamed. “I’m all done.”
Both Loren and Tam whipped their heads around to gawk at her.
“Since when?” Tam asked.
“Since you two started holding hands.”
Loren blinked down at Soma’s lap, where his and Tam’s fingers were intertwined. “When did we start holding hands?”
“Search me. Or don’t, ugh, what a horrifying mental image that is!”
“Pardon me for my tardiness in telling you that I had finished.” Soma didn’t sound apologetic at all. “An old woman such as I is not often so entertained.”
Entertainment? Was that what Tam and Loren were to everybody gathered here? Then again, it might be beneficial for the cause of peace, for all involved to see that an elf and a human could bicker just as much as any two ill-matched people would, heedless of their species. That must be why Eras and Emeraude, both astute strategists, had allowed them to bicker mostly unimpeded.
Tam tugged her fingers away from Loren’s, unnerved by how she hadn’t noticed it before—the clamminess of her palm against the coolness of Loren’s. She was usually vigilant about guarding herself from attack, and not registering what was happening to her own hand was bloody peculiar. It was as if her skin hadn’t identified Loren’s skin as belonging to another. It was as if Loren’s skin was her own.
Mayhap Tam wasn’t as invulnerable to the bond as she had hoped.
Dammit.
“Tam,” said Emeraude. “Are you truly unharmed? How do you feel?”
“Just peachy.” Tam wondered if it’d be rude for her to wipe her hand on her breeches where the elves could see her doing it. It wasn’t because she considered all the elves disgusting; she just didn’t want Loren’s… germs… on her. Loren’s in particular. What if his snootiness was infectious? “Thank you for asking, Your Majesty.” Tam scowled at Loren. “Unlike some people.”
“I didn’t need to ask!” Loren protested. “If you’d been harmed, the bond would’ve gone off in my head like the ringing of a thousand bells.”
“Music to your ears, I’m sure.”
Loren clamped his mouth shut. He stared down at his hands, that had so betrayed him by gripping Tam’s.
Soma patted him on the shoulder almost… consolingly? What did Loren have to be consoled about?
“King Eras and Queen Emeraude,” said Soma, “I regret to inform you that what Tam witnessed was, indeed, a perversion only possible with the misuse of the Firestone.”
The elves quailed en masse. They actually, visibly quailed. Tam didn’t want to know what could make a race of immortals quail. Even Eras had blanched.
“Holy Seer,” Emeraude said respectfully, “we humans have never heard of these Stones, and if the use of the Stones is what has changed the course of our history, then we would appreciate being educated as to their nature and how they may be controlled.”
“No human can control them,” answered Soma. “Not without capturing and somehow forcing an elven Seer, like myself, to assist them with the ritual. Danis must have stolen the Stone and captured the Seer of the Fire Elves. It is truly a tragic day.” Soma closed her eyes, and the pulses of power she had been emitting slowed, as if she were drawing that power into herself, concentrating on some inner vision only she could see.
With her eyes still shut, Soma recited, “Hark, my human friends. This is the story of
the Stones. There are four elements and thus four Stones, created by nature to distribute power uniformly amongst the elves. At the dawn of time, nature had given the elves all the magics of creation—the magic of fire, wind, water, and earth. However, much like the humans, they began to vie for supremacy and started wars against each other. To contain their greed and their capacity for destruction, they were then split into four tribes, each representing the element whose Stone they were assigned. The Fire Elves could control only the Firestone, the Earth Elves only the Earthstone, and so on. This curbed their powers and gave the tribes an equality that was nigh impossible to overturn. Peace was restored, and in the interests of that peace, the elves were dispelled to the four corners of the globe, where they dwelled with their Stones to guide and empower them. This was centuries before humans came into being.”
“But what stopped the elves from unleashing their Stones against the puling, newborn humans?” Tam asked. “Even if the Stones didn’t do much against the other elves?”
“Ah, a clever distinction,” Soma approved. “There are basic magics all elves possess, such as our healing arts, our illusory enchantments, and the acuity of our senses—especially among our Sentinels—but our more deadly powers are locked into our Stones and can only be unlocked in times of dire need. To prevent a Stone’s misuse, whosoever that doth seek its use will forfeit his or her life. After the ritual is performed by the Seer, a willing sacrifice—often the Seer themselves—must be offered to the Stone so that it can be unlocked, as it can only be unlocked by elven magic. This prevents those elves with designs on world domination from ever using a Stone, because those who desire domination do not wish to die themselves. If they cannot live, they cannot reap the rewards of their newfound power, now can they? Even if they offer another as a sacrifice in their stead, how can they convince that surrogate to sacrifice themselves willingly? The Stone cannot be unlocked by an unwilling sacrifice.”
“A morbid yet farseeing failsafe,” Emeraude commented. “So either Danis has recruited an elf, or he has ensorcelled an elf into submission.” After a pause, she asked Soma, “Do the Stones differ in their magic, as they are of different elements?”
“Yes. Each Stone has a distinct… personality, if you will, to match the personalities of the elves who can wield it. The nature of earth is to grow, to shelter, to nourish, and to bury. The nature of water is to cool, to slake, to drown, and to extinguish. The nature of air is to disperse, to fan out, to be unrestricted, and to travel across limitless distances. The nature of fire is to warm, to consume, and to agitate, for heat agitates the particles that make up our universe. Without heat, the universe would become inert and all within it would die. Thus, out of the four Stones, the Firestone is the most suited to regenerate dead tissue and to breathe life into the dead.”
“That is why you suspect the Firestone,” Emeraude concluded, “and not the Waterstone or the Airstone.”
“The Airstone is said to have been annihilated in mysterious circumstances a millennium ago, leading to the extinction of the Air Elves. So they cannot be responsible for this madness. The Water Elves live upon the sea, in floating cities built of wood and in the ships they use to commute back and forth between those cities. To them, the affairs of the mainland are largely irrelevant—and even if they weren’t, water cannot ignite the spark of life and allow it to catch and spread like fire can.”
“King Eras.” Emeraude was wan. “Based on what the Seer says, we can deduce that Danis has utilized the Firestone to spread his accursed life to others and to reanimate them, much like fire spreads when it meets tinder.”
“Precisely,” Eras concurred. “Once unleashed, the Firestone consumes all in its path, because that is what fire does.”
“B-but….” Tam was increasingly alarmed by this fantastical possibility. “How come we received no news or even rumors of the dead being reanimated? Not until now, when we fought off the undead at the border with Axenborg?”
“When you observe a fire’s behavior,” Soma said, as if fire could have a behavior, as if it were sentient, “then you will find that it must be stoked before it can spread. A faltering flame with insufficient kindling is incapable of spreading. Only if it is sufficiently fed does it become a roaring blaze that devours everything around it. What I glimpsed in Tam’s mind was the reddish hue of fire in the eyes of those undead soldiers, which meant that they were victims of the Firestone. It seems to me that all the kingdoms Danis has been conquering, and all the lives he has been taking in the process, have been fed to the Firestone—and now that it has been stoked to a towering inferno, it has begun to spread to every being and body that Danis conquers.”
“That is—” Emeraude looked, for the first time in Tam’s memory, afraid. Very, very afraid. “I had half feared this, but to hear it…. This means that Danis will soon become unstoppable. If he isn’t already unstoppable. Axenborg may not have betrayed us so much as been forced to yield to Danis, because if he killed King Korbyn and those scouts that we met at the border, then all Danis had to do to enslave them was to reanimate them—to reanimate their bodies as empty vessels, without their minds or their hearts or their consciences. King Korbyn was dear to the Axenborgians for his compassion and his virtue, and they would have hated Danis for murdering their beloved king. But instead of having to suppress a rebellion in Axenborg, Danis would only have to slay Axenborgian after Axenborgian to reduce them to his mindless pawns. King Korbyn—or rather, Korbyn’s corpse—would now be Danis’s puppet, as would any Axenborgian who resisted Danis. Who may still be resisting Danis, only to become his tools. The scale of the slaughter will be unimaginable. In the ensuing weeks, Danis’s army may multiply in size exponentially as he mass murders and converts all of Axenborg. He will be undefeatable.”
Even Alfernas was shaken, if the ashen hue of his face was anything to go by. The elven ministers clustered closer together to conduct what appeared to be an impromptu conference, gesticulating wildly and arguing in low, urgent voices.
Eras remained silent, listening in. His features had a stark grimness to them, as if he foresaw the end of peace for his people and could find no alternative to it. Emeraude had a foreboding despair to her, too, but in her eyes shone the resolution to overcome that despair by any means necessary.
She had no choice. She was a queen. If Emeraude gave up hope, then so would her helpless subjects, who had none to turn to but her. Tam could see all that on Emeraude’s face, unusually unguarded as it was right now. Tam was tempted to go and hold Emeraude’s hand, just as Kay had held Tam’s.
But Emeraude didn’t need that solace. She never did. As Tam watched, the despair that had briefly overcome Emeraude was transmuted as if by alchemy into a steely resolve, a purity of purpose that burned away the doubt from Emeraude’s bearing and left her as centered, poised, and fearless as before. It was like watching a ritual cleansing, not unlike the rituals performed by priests when working miracles.
Tam envied that mastery of the self, that alchemy, which in Tam’s opinion outdid any magic the elves could wield. What the elves wielded was power over their environment, while Emeraude wielded power over herself, and that, as Tam’s mother had once told her, was the only real power there was. Every other type of power was a mirage, constructed by the ego to make the pitiless desert of life more bearable.
From among the chittering humans, Zameen alone asked Emeraude for permission to address the two delegations, and Emeraude gave it.
“I have been a warrior longer than bears telling.” Zameen’s sagging, blue-veined skin belied the steady grip she had on her cane, which she leaned against even as she sat. “I was here before this Great War, for the last Great War, and I can assure you that only the weapons have changed. War itself has not. The principles of war have not. If our enemy now wields a weapon we have not used before, then we, too, if we unite, wield a weapon of equal power. If Danis possesses the Firestone, we possess the Earthstone. Why can we not pit one against the other?”
> “We? There is no we,” Alfernas bit out. “The Earthstone is not to be shared. It belongs to the Earth Elves and only to the Earth Elves. You humans will never have it. Just look at what you did with the Firestone, after stealing it from the Fire Elves and likely sacrificing their Seer to gain control of it! You think we Earth Elves will let your kind anywhere near ours? The elves need not ally with the humans to wield the Earthstone. All you ought to do is stay out of our way.”
“Alfernas,” said Eras quietly. “We can only wield the Earthstone against the Firestone if we cross land belonging to the humans—the land between the Wanderwood and Astaris’s border with Axenborg. An alliance is obligatory. They will not possess the Stone, but they will be our partners in transporting it, guarding it, and situating it strategically, such that it might be used.”
Alfernas harrumphed.
“Soma, what do you hear from the earth?” Eras queried. “If you cast your senses far enough, to the border, do you sense the incoming of troops?”
Both humans and elves alike held their breaths. There was another surge of magic from Soma, spilling out of her and moving northward, toward the border. The trees around the clearing stirred and rustled as if a wind had just gusted through their branches.
“Distant,” Soma murmured. “Very distant. Too distant for me to hear the striking of their boots against the ground, but the trees there have seen the army and have gossiped about it to one another, as trees do. The trees of the border have spoken to the trees within Astaris, and when I asked them to speak to our own trees, the trees of the Wanderwood, they relayed that there is in fact an army headed toward us. It is weeks away, but is headed toward us nonetheless.” A frown marred Soma’s already wrinkled forehead even more. “I cannot descry their life force—they are invisible to me—but it is as though flames are lapping at the edge of my psyche, growing hotter the farther I venture north. It can only mean that the soldiers are not themselves, but agents of the Firestone. This army is not of the living. It is of the dead.”